In the wake of the massive 2008 Great Sichuan Earthquake, Chinese lawyers are awakening citizens to the availability of their legal rights. According to the WSJ Law Blog, lawyers are using television and the Web to teach Chinese people, including earthquake survivors, about how they can "sue the government for certifying building codes for classrooms that crumbled." And lawyers are also educating the public on other potential, non-earthquake related causes of action, such as suing for discrimination or poor labor conditions.

As I posted here previously, American and Chinese lawyers may take different approaches when it comes to valuation of damages in lawsuits. Nevertheless, there are similarities in other aspects of practice. For example, Liu Xiaoyuan, one of the lawyers quoted in the article, advertises through a blog and TV appearances, just like many American lawyers. Of course, Chinese lawyers don't face nearly the competition for cases as do their American counterparts: China has 122,000 full-time lawyers, or one for every 10,000 people, compared to a one (lawyer) to three hundred ratio in the United States.

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In China, Lawsuits Rising From the Ruins of the Earthquake

In the wake of the massive 2008 Great Sichuan Earthquake, Chinese lawyers are awakening citizens to the availability of their legal rights. According to the WSJ Law Blog, lawyers are using television and the Web to teach Chinese people, including earthquake survivors, about how they can "sue the government for certifying building codes for classrooms that crumbled." And lawyers are also educating the public on other potential, non-earthquake related causes of action, such as suing for discrimination or poor labor conditions.

As I posted here previously, American and Chinese lawyers may take different approaches when it comes to valuation of damages in lawsuits. Nevertheless, there are similarities in other aspects of practice. For example, Liu Xiaoyuan, one of the lawyers quoted in the article, advertises through a blog and TV appearances, just like many American lawyers. Of course, Chinese lawyers don't face nearly the competition for cases as do their American counterparts: China has 122,000 full-time lawyers, or one for every 10,000 people, compared to a one (lawyer) to three hundred ratio in the United States.